First the good news. George Monbiot[2] – aka the Great Moonbat – has issued a personal apology for the shabby behaviour of his climate-fear-promoting scientist chums in the Climategate scandal.

It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging(1). I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released(2,3), and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request(4).

Now the not-so-good-news. He’s trying to limit the damage by pinning the blame on one (admittedly very deserving, but there are others, Lord knows there are others) man.

Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics(5,6), or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(7). I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.

Now for the bit where it gets unpleasant. So seriously unpleasant that I’m not sure I should be posting such things in a family newspaper. You ready? I’m warning you, it’s not pretty. The Moonbat makes a brave but not – I fear – wholly successful foray into the unfamiliar terrain of humour and satire. Here goes:

To bury manmade climate change, a far wider conspiracy would have to be revealed. Luckily for the sceptics, and to my intense disappointment, I have now been passed the damning email which confirms that the entire science of global warming is indeed a scam. Had I known that it was this easy to rig the evidence, I wouldn’t have wasted years of my life promoting a bogus discipline. In the interests of open discourse, I feel obliged to reproduce it here.

No, no. Keep up there at the back! The Moonbat isn’t really experiencing “intense disappointment.” This is a joke, geddit? He’s about to show you the kind of letter which really would be a smoking gun, if it existed, which of course it doesn’t because you see – (ho ho!, stap me vitals, ooh nurse, etc) – George made it up using the humorous medium of comical exaggeration for satirical effect.